Digital Gender Diversity: Constellations of Gendered Meaning on Tumblr

• In Event: 2422 - Section on the Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (100 min): Table 12: Gender Role Attitudes and the Production of Gendered Meaning

Abstract

Using an innovative double sample of Gender-focused discursive communities on Tumblr, we investigate how diverse genders are produced, performed, and discussed. Contemporary sociological work on gender remains bound by binary gender thinking, even when focused on gender diverse individuals and communities. That work amounts to an interrogation of non-binary, trans, and other gender diverse and queer people. Scholars then attempt to define our genders in terms of men and women, often placing us either between man and woman or by measuring our opposition to that binary. Results from discussions on tumblr reject this accounting. We use network analysis to show that individual gender networks are connected and have similar density scores . In many cases, the same vertices were shared between multiple networks, demonstrating that if Tumblr users were participating in one diverse gender network, they were likely to be embedded in several others. Together, these findings indicate that Tumblr users do not limit their participation to a singular gender network. Instead, they consider a multiplicity of gender networks when using Tumblr signifying that conversations about gender identity are layered, relational, and dynamic. Word embeddings, a way of measuring the way words are used, show that words reflecting gender-diverse identities form their own constellation of meaning neither between nor in opposition to ‘man’ and ‘woman’.

Authors

• Hannah Elizabeth Curtis, University of Washington

• Ian Kennedy, University of Washington